The price of adultery in Spain? €200,000

[CorvusCamenarum]

Story (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4685231/Adulterous-Spanish-woman-told-to-pay-husband-200000-in-damages.html)

The woman, who had three children by her lover, pretended for years that they were fathered by her husband, according to reports.
After years of suspecting his of infidelity, the husband who can't be named, finally discovered she had kept a lover for six of the fourteen years the couple had been together.
DNA tests showed that three of their four children had been fathered by the other man, the Times reports. The husband then took his wife to court, demanding compensation.
The court in Valencia, southeastern Spain, ordered her to pay €100,000 for the suffering she caused him. She fought the ruling, but the Supreme Court has upheld it, and doubled the damages to €200,000 .
Judges said that the compensation should be “higher than if the children had been killed in an accident”.
The wife was judged to have “acted negligently in the conception of her children”, and the concealment of the truth “only added to the pain caused to the husband” who should be compensated correctly.
In her defence, the woman told the court her extramarital activities had been “passionate and irregular” and blamed her husband for being cold, unfaithful and disinterested in the children.
The court ruled her claims were not credible.

Too bad we don't have a similar precedent in this country.

[Gelfin]

…and disinterested in the children…

Common malapropism or strangely appropriate word choice?

[miloblithe]

Are you specifically happy about the idea of being able to sue a spouse for emotional damages or is this specifically about being able to sue women for lying about paternity?

[CorvusCamenarum]

Are you specifically happy about the idea of being able to sue a spouse for emotional damages or is this specifically about being able to sue women for lying about paternity?

It's the paternity fraud and the fact that a court of law actually called this woman to account that got my interest. I've heard far too many stories in this country how a woman told a guy the kid was his but wasn't, he finds out later on, the the courts tell him he's out of luck and has no legal recourse (and in some cases must continue paying child support or be jailed). There's more I could say on the subject, but I have to be somewhere in 45 minutes.

[miloblithe]

I still think this is an unnecessary fear that seems to be propagated among certain groups. None of the studies I've seen prove that this is anything other than an extremely rare occurrence among those who have no reason to doubt that they are the father of their own children.

Certainly, anyone willfully guilty of fraud should be punishable. Of course, that means there's some burden of proof that the mother knew that she was committing fraud.

[skunk]

I've heard far too many storiesIndeed.

[CorvusCamenarum]

I still think this is an unnecessary fear that seems to be propagated among certain groups. None of the studies I've seen prove that this is anything other than an extremely rare occurrence among those who have no reason to doubt that they are the father of their own children.

The range of figures I've seen is 10-30%, depending on where you go for your statistics, and that's just the cases where paternity was actually tested, which I'm willing to wager was rarely at the behest of the mother. You can look at Wiki's page on paternity fraud for some of the more outlandish examples. The Parker case in Florida is particularly appalling, even though I'll admit the appellate judges were correct in applying the law as written.

Tennessee currently has a bill being considered that would address this issue perfectly - mandatory testing at birth. Story here. (http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=7977690)

Certainly, anyone willfully guilty of fraud should be punishable. Of course, that means there's some burden of proof that the mother knew that she was committing fraud.

One would think that having an affair, getting pregnant thrice, then telling the husband the child(ren) is/are his meets that burden.

Indeed.
Do you actually have something to contribute, or do you just enjoy being snide for its own sake?

[EricNau]

The man who raised the children is their father, regardless of DNA. Society places far too great an emphasis on biological paternity/maternity and should be placing more emphasis on love and family.

I don't see the basis for this ruling.

[skunk]

Do you actually have something to contribute, or do you just enjoy being snide for its own sake?I've heard a lot of stories, too, but unless I can back them up with some real information, stories is what they remain. Forming your opinion on the back of hearsay of doubtful provenance is foolish.

[miloblithe]

The range of figures I've seen is 10-30%, depending on where you go for your statistics, and that's just the cases where paternity was actually tested, which I'm willing to wager was rarely at the behest of the mother.

Exactly. Think about that. That means that in 10-30% of the cases where the father (or mother) has a reason to suspect the paternity of the children, the children are not in fact his. Or, in other words, in 70-90% of the cases where the father suspects infidelity and that the children are not his, he is in fact wrong and they are his.

Further, this is not a randomly selected group. It is a self-selecting group that does not resemble the general population. In the general population--or even moreso among the population that has no reason to suspect misattributed paternity--the percentage is much much lower. More like 1-2%.

http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/A/Kermyt.G.Anderson-1/papers/worldwidepatconf.pdf

Another question: are you equally as adamant that men who father children outside of marriage should be required to disclose the existence of those children to their spouses and pay child support as you are about the criminality of women who tell their husbands that they are the fathers of their children?

As for the woman in this case, can you prove that she knowingly committed fraud? Having an affair doesn't mean she knew that the children were not her husband's.